


See Where Things Go Naturally

by bar2d2s



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, post-series finale, romantic tension resolved, sexual tension not so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 15:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14240490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: There had always been a tension between them. First the raw, visceral hatred of sworn enemies, ready to destroy each other at a moment’s notice. Then, a tentative, hesitant respect. Friendship, camaraderie, stolen glances across crowded rooms, midnight walks, talking til they fell asleep. A night spent halfway up the side of a temple. And now...this.Lothal is finally free, so Zeb and Kallus finally get to have that drink.





	See Where Things Go Naturally

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been working on a lot of stuff. A story for a fanzine, a fanmix (because 8Tracks is alive again apparently), and a multi-chapter AU that I literally jot down ideas for behind the register at work. So what gets finished first? A continuation to [Connection, Over Wire and Static](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913490) that I literally passed out writing a stone's throw from it being finished. Because of course.

It was over.

Not really, of course. Sure, they’d won Lothal, but the Empire still had its hooks in Ryloth, Mandalore, Coruscant...endless worlds, ones with direct meaning to those in the rebellion, and ones they’d never heard of before at all. But Lothal was free, and that’s what they were celebrating tonight.

_Celebrating_ , being the key word. Ezra was still alive somewhere out there in the universe, the remaining crew of the Ghost refused to believe any less. And even with him gone, Rex and Wolffe had insisted that Gregor wouldn’t have wanted them to mourn him.

“He’s still here with us.” Wolffe said gruffly, accepting a bottle of violently pink home-brewed liquor from a man, who was passing them out to anyone who looked to be of age. “We just can’t see him anymore.”

“He’s hunting joopas through the Force.” Rex seconded, wistful. “May he find the rest of our brothers there.” He clinked his bottle of what seemed to be some kind of pulkay against Wolffe’s, and they both took long swings. “Agh, like drinking speeder fuel. Swap?” He offered his bottle to Hera, who declined.

“I’m not in the rotgut mood right now, I’m afraid. My stomach has been giving me hell for days already as it is.” She did knock her glass of water against his bottle, though, both of them quietly toasting to loved ones lost.

It was late, too late for the entire  _planet_  to still be this awake and this loud, when they eventually stumbled out of the bar.

Amid the dizzying crush of people, Zeb had managed to procure a single bottle each of a heady drink called kulpa, popular with larger beings like Wookies and Lasat, and a rather expensive bottle of Corellian wine.

“I hope you paid for that.” Kallus huffed, pressed tightly to Zeb’s side. He was already half drunk from the neon liquor the clones had been swapping back and forth, and Zeb wasn’t too far behind. They’d lost track of Sabine hours ago, around the time Ketsu, Wedge, and several other members of Phoenix Squadron had made an appearance. Hera was safe in the Ghost, her queasy stomach making her poor company. They’d need to check in on her soon, if only to make sure that Rex and Wolffe had eventually ended up passed out in the Ghost’s lounge, like they’d said they planned to.

“It was a gift.” Zeb replied, his smile carrying too many teeth to be sincere. “I don’t think a single bar on this planet is making money tonight, Kal. Now c’mon, I can’t breathe down here.” And with that, Zeb was up and gone, scaling a nearby wall until he’d reached the roof. “There’s a ladder around back! Toss up the bottles!”

Rolling his eyes, Kallus tucked the delicate glass under one arm, going off in search of his way up. The climb was slow between his leg and the bottles, and Zeb ended up pulling the ladder the rest of the way once he was a few rungs from the top. That ensured their privacy, at least. “You  _could_  have carried them up here, you know.”

“Could’ve carried  _you_  up here too, what’s your point?” Zeb uncorked his bottle, the sweet stench of kulpa floating free. “Everything is more satisfying if you have to work for it, I say.” 

Kallus held out his own bottle, which was easily opened by way of one of Zeb’s long claws. The scent of the wine was much more pleasant, and brought back fond memories. Drinking straight from the bottle brought back...well not  _memories_ , but something like them. Hazy recollections, of bodies and barrooms. Corellian-made liquor and wine always had a distinct flavor to it, as if just  _being_  from the planet gave it some kind of higher quality. It made him feel like an elitist.

Next to him, Zeb was choking on his kulpa.

“Zeb!” It took several firm slams to the back before Zeb’s airways had cleared, and he sat there gasping, his hands on his knees. “What, can’t handle your liquor anymore, old man?” Zeb let out a wheezing laugh.

“Not when you’re sitting there with the whole neck of your bottle down your throat!” Kallus flushed red.

It had been an old habit, from his younger days. A friend had taught him how to chug wine, on cheaper stuff, of course. The less time you spent drinking, the more time you could spend being drunk! Flawless logic, when you were nineteen.

“What, jealous?” He sneered, self-conscious. Zeb sat up straighter, taking a thoughtful sip from his bottle.

“Yeah, kinda.”

Music was drifting up from the street, drums and bells and guitars ringing out from different corners of the city. No one was playing the same tune, but it all blended so nicely, Kallus couldn’t bring himself to care. Zeb was pressed to him, the way he’d been all evening, ever since he and Sabine had waved him over at the start of all this.

“Come sit next to me!” Zeb had yelled over the chatter and laughter of the other bar patrons, as Sabine laughed and punched his shoulder. So Kallus had sat, and they’d talked and reminisced and laughed. They’d cried too, sitting in that corner booth with Sabine, Hera, and the clones. The family they’d built together was splintered, and would probably never be whole again.

“You shouldn’t be.” Kallus said, coming back to himself. He was well past drunk now, or should have been, but there was none of the haziness. He felt electrified, every nerve ending alight. “The wine will be gone in the morning.” And it was so,  _so_  late, the long shadows of night at their deepest and darkest. Dawn was precious hours away. The bottle forgotten, Kallus spilled himself into Zeb’s lap. “You’ll still be here.”

There had always been a tension between them. First the raw, visceral hatred of sworn enemies, ready to destroy each other at a moment’s notice. Then, a tentative, hesitant respect. Friendship, camaraderie, stolen glances across crowded rooms, midnight walks, talking til they fell asleep. A night spent halfway up the side of a temple. And now...this.

“You’re drunk.” Zeb rumbled, and Kallus felt the words deep in his chest. His eyes, so bright in the dark of the night, looked sad.

“Not so drunk that I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. Besides, I promised you a drink, didn’t I?” Kallus replied, grabbing for the bottle of kulpa. It was too strong for him, he knew from experience, but he choked some down anyway. With a sigh and a fond smile, Zeb reached out and snagged his bottle of wine, draining the dregs in a single gulp and... _oh_. 

Zeb’s mouth was sweet, the bitterness of the kulpa all but washed away by the wine. His tongue would never fit in Kallus’ mouth without choking him, so Zeb was content to let the human explore, his hands wandering.

Kallus had changed out of his Imperial disguise as soon as possible, the soft browns and greens of his non-uniform clothes suiting him better than that stark black ever had. He let out a sigh as Zeb pet his sides, then pulled back. “Wait, let me...” He shrugged out of his jacket, sitting up enough to toss it away. He’d been sitting across Zeb’s thighs, but now rearranged himself so that he was straddling them, forehead resting on Zeb’s shoulder. They both gasped as the new position brought certain facts to light.

Fact: Ezra had been mad. Kallus could  _drown_  himself in Zeb’s scent, and it wouldn’t be enough. Fact: straddling the broadness of Zeb’s thighs caused a considerable bit of strain on his bad leg, but the ache was nothing compared to the pulse-pounding, heart-stopping excitement he felt whenever he pressed his hips forward to find, to find...

Fact: Zeb was hard for him. Very hard. And very... _prominent_.

“Oh.” Kallus whimpered, and the sound caused Zeb’s grip on his hips to tighten. “Oh, you, we, Garazeb...we are on a  _roof_.”

The statement startled a laugh out of him, and soon they were both in hysterics, swapping kisses between breathless little giggles as they shushed each other. They were necking on a  _roof_  while barely twenty feet below them, the entire planet of Lothal celebrated its newly obtained freedom. 

“So we’ll get off the roof.” Zeb growled, but his voice held no menace, only promise. “We’ll go back to the Ghost, and we’ll get you acquainted with every flat surface in the place.” It was a solid plan, one Kallus found himself very on board with.

Fate, however, held different ideas.

The Ghost was  _not_  the silent, semi-deserted paradise they’d been expecting. Rex and Wolffe had made it back in one piece, and had apparently picked up another dozen bottles of that awful neon liquor on the way. Hera was still awake and, while not drinking herself, was not stopping them from dedicating toasts to brothers and sisters in arms that had passed. There was a wailing noise coming from the direction of the bunks, and when Kallus raised a brow, Zeb had squeezed his eyes shut.

“Ketsu.” He mumbled, and Kallus hadn’t been aware that Lasat could blush. That was, of course, when Rex noticed them lurking, and called them into the common area with a joyful shout of,

“We’re celebrating extra, now! Hera’s pregnant!”

So maybe they  _were_  drunk, as they practically fell over each other in their rush to get to Hera with open arms and embarrassingly unguarded smiles. Their family was growing.

Zeb and Kallus ended up staying up with them until dawn, when Hera decided she was tired of being fawned over, and the clones shuffled off after her, intent on curling up in an unused bunk rather than on the floor. The noises from Sabine’s room had stopped by that point, thank the Force, but Zeb ‘offered’ his room to Rex and Wolffe, anyway. That room had two bunks...whereas the other free room on the ship only had one.

Not that he’d feel right sleeping in his own bed tonight, anyway.

It took passing by their old room for it to really sink in for Zeb. Ezra was... _gone_. Even if he was still alive, the next time they saw each other, they’d both be changed men. They would likely never share a living space again. The thought, which would have delighted him a year ago, made him feel surprisingly sad.

“Oh, I thought all of these rooms were the same size.” Kallus said in surprise as they entered Kanan’s old quarters. Hera had moved the majority of his possessions out after his death, in what they’d at the time assumed to be some kind of grief-fueled hoarding. Turns out she was nesting.

Kriff. Hera was  _pregnant_.

“Sabine’s room is the same size as mine, Kanan and Hera’s rooms are bigger, but also share a size.” Kanan’s bed was softer than his own, and Zeb scowled as he sat down. He favored a harder bunk. But then Kallus was in his space, in his lap, firm and warm. His scent was smokey, but layered with a sweetness as the liquor he’d consumed seeped from his pores. Kallus’ eyes were half-closed, drunkenness and contentment lulling him into a state of relaxation that seemed to be putting him to sleep. “Kal...” His eyelids raised a half-centimeter, then closed fully.

“Mm, I know. Shoes.” That hadn’t been where he’d been going, but Zeb helped Kallus remove his boots all the same. Human feet, with their nubbly, useless little toes, were so strange to him. “Would you think me a tease if we just...” He yawned so hard he shivered, body rocking forwards with the force of it. Zeb laughed.

“It’s been a hell of a day, Kal. I don’t mind if we sleep.” They arranged themselves on the bed which, while too soft, was at least big enough to fit them both. Had they been in Zeb’s room, Kallus would have needed to sleep on top of him.

Not that he’d have objected, mind.

“You may think it soft of me, but I do believe I’d like to be awake and fully sober the first time we...” Kallus turned his face, hiding it in Zeb’s side. Warmth bloomed in his chest. No, that wasn’t soft at all.

“Nah, I agree. The things I wanna do to you, you’d probably appreciate more awake.” Kallus snorted against Zeb’s side, looking up at him. In the sparse light, his brown eyes seemed more golden, his face soft. Zeb had always been bad at pinpointing humans by age and while he knew he and Kallus were roughly the same, in this moment, he looked so much younger. Maybe it was the beard.

“It wasn’t too late for us.” He murmured, stroking his hand down Zeb’s covered chest. They were both fully dressed, which was a tragedy in itself. Zeb made a noise in agreement, running his claws lightly down Kallus’ back until he heard the human’s breathing even out.

Tomorrow, after the collective planet-wide hangover had passed, they’d need to start rebuilding. Put together plans in case the Empire came back with reinforcements, help reinstate Ryder as governor, contact the rebellion with updates, and on and on. If they’d thought life had been hectic before, it would be  _nothing_  compared to the coming days.

But that was in the near future. Today, they would sleep in. Today, they would tease Sabine about her girlfriend. Today, they would needle Hera for details on how exactly her ‘platonic relationship’ with Kanan had produced a child.

Kallus sighed in his sleep, shifting closer to Zeb.

Today would be here soon enough. For now, he planned to live in this serene moment. He’d earned it.


End file.
